Chief Creative Officer, Publisher
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Folks,
I wrote the following post is response to questions about Dungeon's Greyhawk map posted to the WotC Greyhawk folder. Since I think many of you would find it interesting, I've decided to repost the message here.
All of the tags on maps 1 and 2 come from previous maps of the Flanaess (WoG boxed set, From the Ashes, the LGG) or from a handful of additional sources. I'll briefly outline these sources below, by nation. I agree with Nightscreed that a detailed cribsheet for the map locations would be ideal. At one point that was to be part of the project, but the whole thing is so immense that there simply wasn't time.
NW FLANAESS (MAP 1, DUNGEON 118)
ZEIF: All of the new locations here appear on the LGG map, but are described in detail in an article by Frederick Weining (LGG co-author) in the fifth and final stand-alone issue of the Living Greyhawk Journal.
DRAWMIDJ ISLANDS: These were introduced in the Living Greyhawk Gazetteer, but have never been officially detailed. Another island chain, the Janisibs, are just off the western border of the map. The legendary Pinnacles of Azor'alq do not appear on the map, since their precise location is not known.
EKBIR, TUSMIT: The new locales here come from the LGG, and appear on the map that accompanied that product.
BLACKMOOR: The locales in this section come from the LGG. Fred Weining wrote the Blackmoor section of that book, patterning it off a similar article he wrote for the online fan-produced "Oerth Journal," which I used to edit. Anyone interested in those locales would do well to check Google for the whole article, which blends elements of Dave Arneson's "DA" D&D adventures with Greyhawk to create a distinctly original Blackmoor with thematic ties to the original.
EMPIRE OF IUZ: Nearly all the locations in this area come from the map provided with Carl Sargent's "Iuz the Evil," one of three major From the Ashes-era sourcebooks (the others being "The Marklands" and the web-released "Ivid the Undying"). Some Vesve Forest locations also come from this source.
HIGHFOLK, FURYONDY: Most of these locations come from "The Marklands." Fountainspring is from "Artifact of Evil," a Gord the Rogue novel by Gary Gygax, the setting's creator. Castle Hart (in Furyondy at the junction of the Crystal and Veng rivers) comes from a second edition product called "Castles." Tusham (along the southeast border of the Vesve) is from "Artifact of Evil." Dragon's Eye Tower, on the western shore of Lake Whyestil, is from the Endless Quest book "Seige of the Tower," by Kem Antilles (which sounds like a pseudonym to me, and seems to be a team of people including Paul Jaquays).
SHIELD LANDS: Torkeep is the estate of Franz Torkeep, a pregenerated character from Gary Gygax's "Isle of the Ape" AD&D adventure. White Plume Mountain is from the classic adventure of the same name by Lawrence Schick.
YATILS: The Forgotten Temple of Tharizdun and the Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth are from the Gary Gygax AD&D adventures of the same name.
SW FLANAESS (MAP 2, DUNGEON 119)
GEOFF: The new locations in this region are from "Against the Giants: The Liberation of Geoff," by Sean K Reynolds.
STERICH: The new locations in this region are from the three-adventure "Istivin: City of Shadows" story arc that ran from Dungeon 117-119.
YEOMANRY: Most of the towns in this region were introduced in the Living Greyhawk Gazetteer. "Dark Gate," introduced in Roger Moore's "Greyhawk: The Adventure Begins," has not previously appeared on any official map. Note that locations from the map in the Rose Estes novel "The Eyes Have It" were specifically excluded from this project, as that novel takes great liberties with continuity (the Yeomanry is ruled by an elven "Queen for Life," for example), and is best ignored.
KEOLAND: Most of the new tags on map section 2 come from an article entitled "The Kingdom of Keoland," by Gary Holian (co-author of the LGG). The article appears in Living Greyhawk Journal #1.
THE AMEDIO: The cities Cauldron and Sasserine are from the Shackled City Adventure Path, an 11-adventure campaign that just concluded in Dungeon #116.
POMARJ: Strandkeep is from an early chapter of "Artifact of Evil," by Gary Gygax. Ostrand Keep and Fenrill are from Slavers!, by Sean K Reynolds and Chris Pramas.
THE WILD COAST: Nol-Daer is from an adventure of the same name published in Dungeon #13. It's a fun adventure involving a cambion, and has appeared on a handful of subsequent maps.
KRON HILLS: Most of the new locations in this area come from "Vecna Lives!" by David "Zeb" Cook. Hommlet, the Temple of Elemental Evil, Sobanwych, and Nulb come from T1-4 "The Temple of Elemental Evil," by Gary Gygax and Frank Mentzer. Rastor is from "Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil," by Monte Cook.
FURYONDY: Most of these locations are from "The Marklands," by Carl Sargent.
BRIGHT LANDS: These locations are derived from "Rary the Traitor," a From the Ashes-era sourcebook.
SEA PRINCES: The new island, Isle Sybarate, is from AD&D module UK1: Beyond the Crystal Caves.
That's all for now. If people have specific questions about tags I have not mentioned in this email, I'll do my best to provide further information.
--Erik Mona
Editor-in-Chief
Dragon & Dungeon
Speaking of map annotations, you know what might be a cool goodie to include in Dungeon? A simplified, black-and-white full-page map of Greyhawk designed for DMs to photocopy and pass-out to their players. That way players can mark on it where they've traveled, where they fought battles, where they built a tower, where their PC died the first time, where he died the second time, where he died the third time.....where he was finally buried. Eventually, after it was covered with symbols, skulls and notes, it would function as a nifty memento of a PC and a campaign.
Tony M
Nice job BTW.
jh
Fagabeefe!
I love Midnight Madness. In high school, a friend and I set up a a Great Allnighter of our own across Boston and the south suburbs. It was tons of fun for everyone involved...except the team that got stuck on the first clue. :(
Back on topic, I'm loving the map, though I was very surprised not to see locations marked for the steading of Chief Nosnra, the glacial rift of Jarl Grugnur, and the halls of King Snurre. After all the homage to Agains the Giants in the recent "Istivin" mini-campaign was great, but I'm surprised that you'd include locations from it and not the original modules. But again, this is only a minor quibble, the map is excellent.
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Hi all-
Before the maps actually came out, we discussed many of the potential locations. Find the board here: http://paizo.com/paizo/messageboards/dungeon/generalDiscussion/greyhawkMaps
Below is a cropping of those messages - just where someone asks about a location and Erik either didn't give a solid answer as to its location, or said that he left it out. I'm not giving credit to the original posters, other than when EM posts a reply about a location. I mention the Sagard the Barbarian novels and have posted scans of their maps here: www.GreyhawkOnline.com/sagardmaps.zip however, EM stated that they are not WotC property and their information is not included in the Map. Books (Maps) 3 & 4 seem very off from actual GH Canon, however 1 & 2 appear to fit very easily. EM mentions an article that he wrote for those maps ("I once wrote an extensive treatise on "Oerth Beyond the Flanaess," culling information from the later Gord and Sagard books. It's an imperfect analysis, but it ought to be pretty fun to read. Unfortunately, I've long lost the file and can't seem to turn it up with a Google search. It was posted to the old AOL Greyhawk folders and (if I'm remembering correctly) it's quite long.")
I posted this towards the end of the board: Ok, doing some research, I found Erik's Bounds of Oerik post from the Old AOL boards. I did some playing around with it and have uploaded the TXT file to CanonFire.com. It's in the downloads section, under Apocrypha & Errata or get it here: http://www.greyhawkonline.com/canonfire/GH_LOG_14_Bounds_of_Oeri k.txt
(there appears to be a space between the I and K in Oerik on the message boards, but there is not one when I type it here, nor on the actual URL, so copy the url and paste, and remove any spaces).
I've combined Erik's introduction, the article itself as well as the questions and answers that he gives for them. It's a very nice article.
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I hope this cut a paste job helps us all in defining cities and towns that we never knew existed.
~~ Erik, I don't know if it survived the edit for issue #118 or if you even noticed, but I included the locations of Adakkan Strold and Strathern Point from "Incident at Strathern Point" in issue #21 as a sort of trivia throwback to the old days on the Istivin hinterlands map. I don't know if that is where Matt Maaske originally intended, but it seemed to fit okay to me. NOTE: EM states that he isn't sure if these made it in or not.
~~ Also, all the neat locations in Hold of the Sea Princes from the old U (Saltmarsh) and UK series of adventures(specifically Crystal Cave, Sentinel, and Gauntlet)would be neat, though you may have covered that already
NOTE: EM's Response: Got it. Not all of the villages around Lake Spendlowe will appear, since most of them are in the same "hex" and I want the map to be asthetically pleasing first and canonically perfect second. Kusnir and Hallbridges appear, but sadly Gannaway does not. They're almost all villages, though, so I'm not sweating it too much. Perhaps we'll revisit the area in an adventure eventually, so I can redress Gannaway's absence then.
~~ Erik, just wanted to throw in the town of Darkhaven, from the Scourge of Worlds DVD adventure. The town itself is somewhat up for placement, as all we know is that it's slightly to the east of the Sea of Dust. I don't think it's been in any other products.
~ This one is an outside pitch, since I can't say these are conclusively Greyhawk, but what about the places from the original Adventure Path (The Sunless Citadel through Bastion of Broken Souls)?
~ I'm relatively confident that the locations from the Iconics novels, such as New Koratia, aren't part of the Flanaess.
~~ Coyote6 states: I am curious where you'd put the Sunless Citadel, Durgeddin's Forge, Nightfang Spire, etc. But, given that I've placed several of 'em already, I'm okay with 'em not being on the map, since I doubt that they'll be in the same places. :) NOTE: I'm putting their name, hoping that they'll be able to give us the locations of the adventures as they've put them when the full map is completed. I'm hoping that others can and will do this for us as well (I'm sure there are multiple potential locations for the modules).
~~ what are the chances some of the locations/maps from the unpublished Ivid the Undying stuff might be included?
~~ Have you thought to include any material from the Gord the Rogue series, or is that material verbotten?
~ Also, what about the location of Mordy's secret castle in the Yatils?
~~ RobBastard provides these locations. I'm unsure if they are on the maps or not as EM didn't respond to them:
Here's a few locales for you:
~Castle Mukos: Ruins near White Plume Mountain. S2, RtWPM
~ Dingaverge: Small town on the edge of the Fellreev (hex A4-54 on the Darlene map). Dragon #56
~ Dragotha's Lair: Home of the undead dragon. Located either near WPM or the Howling Hills. S2, Dragon #134.
~ Dwarfhaven: Small town on Lendore isle, HQ of church of Fortubo. Dragon #88
~ Fharlanst: Destroyed castle of the death knight St Kargoth. Dragon #290
~ Ghazel: Outpost in the Bright Desert. Dungeon #30
~ Lady Kath's estate: Located 1 or 2 day's ride from Eastfair. Dragon #291
~ Monduiz Dephaar's stronghold: located in the eastern Blemu Hills. Dragon #291
~ Morshaldin Castle: ancient home of the Knight Protectors of the Great Kingdom. Dragon #290
~ Nol-Daer: Ruined castle in the Suss Forest. Dungeon #13.
~ Skrellingshald/Tostenhca: Ancient Flan mountain city in the Griffs. GA
~ Trollpyre Keep: Former estate of the death knight Sir Loran, located in southern Sunndi on the edge of the Vast Swamp. Die, Vecna, Die!
~~ CastleMike gives many locations and EM responds to them. Here are the ones that EM stated did not make the cut:
~ Broadford is ten miles north of Littleberg, Furyondy from page 168 Artifact of Evil.
~ Pangate is the sole crossing of the Veng River and lies far above the crossroads (E4-78)
~ Stump is a seedy little village that lies one week by horse west of Littleberg. (Q4-81)
~ The map shows Castle Hart on the western bank at the junction of the Veng and Crystal Rivers with the Town of Port Valour located on the opposite (Southern) bank of the Crystal River putting the town of Port Valour in the Viscounty of the March and Castle Hart in the County of the Reach. NOTE: EM remarks that he believes he got Port Valour.
~ Can't cite the reference so probably not useful but the "Village" of Molag was about midway between Littleberg and Fountainsprings (Not to be confused with the real Molag in the Lands of Iuz to the North but it was one of the reasons I enjoyed adding it to my Markland's map).
~ For Veluna the village of Shancross lies on the Veluna side of the Velverdyva River. (U4-94)
~ For Valley of the Mage Bardillingham is the valley's largest town with a population of 3,000. (W5-115)
~~ Several posters requested Roads: major and not-so major roads between town-city-metropolis.
If there are other areas that need to be looked at when the maps are completed, I'll try to keep a complete list of potential locations for the maps that members provide. When all four maps are done, and I've got these locations, I'll turn it into a download WebEnhancement for CanonFire! in our Downloads section. Let me know if these locations mentioned above have actually made it to the maps or not.
Be Well.
Theocrat Issak
CanonFire! & GreyhawkOnline.com - Protect Your World
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Chief Creative Officer, Publisher
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Sam,
I don't have that map in an easy-to-access format. I'll try to get it on my website (not yet built) eventually, but for now I hope someone else has a copy handy.
Orguiln,
Tovag Baragu is in fact just outside the city of Kanak. Check out the Lake Udrukankar section of the LGG for a little bit of additional information.
--Erik
Perhaps the "Unoerthly Cave" is a reference to the spaceship doorway in the venerable S3 "Expedition to the Barrier Peaks"?
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A question for those of you who know: besides the ship from S3 and the Valley of the Mage, is there anything else substantial written up about what's in the Barrier Peaks? I'm thinking of locating something related to a Greyhawk / Call of Cthulhu cross-over there, and want to make sure that I'm not cutting off any future plot by making established history impossible.
Thanks.
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Chief Creative Officer, Publisher
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Nothing I can think of off hand. You might check "Treasures of Greyhawk," which included a lot of short adventures that tended to range all over the Flanaess. I think the mountain adventures therein were mostly set in the Hellfurnaces, though.
You might also check the Snow Elves articles from the Dragon CD-ROM archive. I think they were set in the Crystalmists, but there might very well be snow elves in the Barrier Peaks.
Look also in the Glossography and on one of the FtA cards, which ought to set you up with two wandering encounter charts for the region. Extrapolating from the information on those charts is a good way to get the "character" of some of the more obscure places in the Flanaess.
--Erik Mona
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Alright, I have a question on locations as well... Where is the town(?) of Ferd (as in Furnock of Ferd in Temple of Elemental Evil) located? I've never seen it on any map or refered to in any other way. I seached at Canonfire and came up blank, so I didn't know if this was a throw-away or if it was an actual location.
Great maps, Erik! What's the chance of creating a single copy of it for sale, perhaps for GenCon or something? I know I'd buy at least a couple of copies and I'm sure that I'm not the only one...
what issue were the snow elves in, in Dragon Magazine?
Anyone know.thanksMike
I don't recall there being "snow elves" there. Perhaps there's something like that in Frostburn.
Othere references:
http://www.drgnscl.com/snowelf.html
http://images.google.com/images?q=snow%20elf&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8& client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&um=1&sa=N&t ab=wi
jh
Hey Eric,
Don't know if you're still paying attention to this thread but rumor has it that the Greyhawk maps from issues 117-120 will be available for sale sometime in the future from Paizo. True or False? If true, any idea when they might become available?
Thanks much....
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Chief Creative Officer, Publisher
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To be clear:
1) Paizo does not intend to sell these maps in any way other than in the back issues in which they were originally available.
2) The reference to a map appearing on my site was to an old cobbled together map of Oerth that incorporated stuff from the Gygax novels (post-TSR) and his "Sagard the Barbarian" books (with Flint Dille). I've long since lost the file. Sorry!
--Erik
I'm a newcomer to the messageboards, could someone tell me where this Greyhawk folder is?
Sorry for the trouble!
The chances are zero presently. We only received approval to print them as is, and the whole thing belongs to WotC.
--Erik
Not that anyone is surprised.
I could never figure out why they don't sell maps separately as posters or prints, rolled so that we can mount them without creases.